FREESTYLE - BUILDING CORE BALANCE

Making sure you're bodyline is as balanced as possible can help build a faster and more efficient freestyle.

Why do it:
Energy used to hold the hips and legs in line in freestyle, is wasted energy. Understanding the core stability needed for great freestyle is a must!

How to do it:
1 - The goal will be to do all of this without a pull-buoy, but starting out with younger swimmers, the buoy will be a big help.
2 - Have them hold the buoy between then ankles (or hips to start) and hold an absolutely straight line in the water from fingertips to toes. Make sure the hips are held at the surface.
3 - After they've learned the solid line, have them rotate slightly from side to side using nothing but their core for rotation.
4 - After a few slight turns of the body, start a very slow pull, maintaining the bodyline.
5 - Eventually, drop the pull-buoy and initiate a small kick, holding the body in the same position as in the initial step.

How to do it really well (the fine points):
Again, the goal will be to do this without the buoy, but give the athlete the feeling of the stabile line first. You can also use a snorkel to allow the swimmer to spend more time learning the line.

Be careful to hold the line and don't allow the bend or drop of the hips. Again, our swimmers are just learning, so they will get much better very soon.

There will be many more of these great stability exercises coming in our upcoming Kristian Gkolomeev video series on GoSwim.tv.